[10] Analysis of sialic acids

Publisher Summary Since 1978, when the last review on the analysis of sialic acids appeared in the series, interest in these compounds has increased, as their involvement in the biological functions of many different molecules and cells became evident. Sialic acids have also gained increasing attention in pathological processes, example, sialidosis, in which sialoglycoconjugates accumulate because of a lack of sialidase. Sensitive and reliable techniques are necessary for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of sialic acids, which are present in biological materials only in low amounts. The chapter discusses isolation and purification of sialic acids in detail. There is also a discussion on the colorimetric analysis of sialic acids. The discussion of chromatographic analyses of sialic acids includes thin-layer chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, gas-liquid chromatography, gas-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The chapter describes various tools for the analysis of sialic acids ranging from assays that can easily be handled and are in wide use, to techniques that require expensive equipment and specialists for the interpretation of analytical data.